Template talk:Nihongo/Archive 1

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 This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Archive 1 Archive 2 →

Contents

Examples

Tokyo (東京都 Tōkyō-to?) is the capital of Japan.

An example of a capital is Tokyo (東京都 Tōkyō-to?).

Manga (漫画?) are Japanese strips.

Examples of strip types include: Manga (漫画?), BD, Comic, etc.

Follow the help links in the demonstrations above for information on the usage of this template.

For experimentation: Template:Nihongo/Sandbox and Template talk:Nihongo/Sandbox (to test changes before applying them to this template).

More examples:

Moon (月 tsuki?) Moon (月?) Moon (月?)
Moon (月 tsuki?, moon) Moon (月? moon) Moon (月? moon)
Moon (月 tsuki?, moon) Moon (月 tsuki?, moon)

? or image

Would it be possible to change the question mark to a small image so that it doesn't look like a question? Exploding Boy 15:59, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it can be done, some way or another. Since effectively it leads to a help-file, it should be some help icon like thingy. Users are accustomed to things like leaflets with little question marks and such. Shinobu 08:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Or, if possible, do you think it might be better to make the Help link be on the kanji, that way there's no extra questionmark or icon to confuse people. Looks cleaner, too. LordAmeth 15:21, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
I have a feeling linking the kanji would confuse new users more than the question mark.
Tokyo (東京都 Tōkyō-to?)
Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to)
Hm, I find the question mark more intuitive. However, rather than an image I would like to suggest using some CSS styling, it could probably be made to look much like whatever image is suggested, and I assume CSS and image support go hand-in-hand a long way. —Philip N.✉ 19:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I think you're right. Especially with that extra space before the question mark, it doesn't look like you're questioning the romanji... LordAmeth 23:29, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
How does this look?
Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to?)
Shinobu 23:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Better, but the question mark is now hard to see. Perhaps if it wasn't blue? Exploding Boy 03:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it's because it's too light. Personally I don't like a black ? but we can make it darker, like this:
Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to?)
I think this ? is dark enough to be clearly visible to all, colourblind or not. Note also that the colour blue is often associated with information, which is, to me at least, a good reason to keep a hint of blue in there. If you still can't see it, perhaps it's too small. Perhaps this is better:
Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to?)
Shinobu 23:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The last one is good. Exploding Boy 17:35, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks good, except for the underline in Firefox when using a Wikipedia theme that doesn't remove underlines from links. The second one has the underline higher so it doesn't disappear when you select text below it, which is a good thing :). —Philip N.✉ 20:33, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I take it it has been decided then? The second one it is. Only the problem of finding Japanese words in articles and tagging them with this template remains. Shinobu 13:17, 18 October 2005 (UTC)


Hi all, I see you've discussed this a lot already, but I just ran into this Nihongo template, and the question mark doesn't seem quite right to me. The first time I saw it, I took it to mean that there was some question about the correct Romanization, which of course, it doesn't mean at all. Actually, since this sort of thing is quite common in Wikipedia, i.e. writing something in a non-Roman alphabet, and then writing the Romanization, maybe there's no need to link to a help page? Anyway, you guys have thought much more about this, so this is just a quick opinion. --Deville (Talk) 20:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

This is an otherwise excellent Template for names of persons and places in Japan and Okinawa. The ideal "help" icon would actually be an interrogation point in a circle; however, as I understand things, that icon (which (?) approximates) is not easy to generate—I haven't solved it for myself. Would "[[Help:Japanese|<sup>(?)</sup>]]" be usable at source-code level until the icon problem has a better solution? - B.C.Schmerker 02:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

More help icon discussion

Lifted from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles):

I have already begun adding it (retroactively) to my own articles. You are welcome to take a look at the articles and see how you think it looks. A list of my articles is available on my user page; I have thus far 'converted' the first 100 or so articles. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the question mark, as I think it makes the whole thing look cluttered. But thanks for the template. Now there'll be a slightly more standard form for introducing article names & their original Japanese spellings. LordAmeth 20:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The template is great, a very good idea, but I agree with the above opinion. I don't like the question mark either. A small Japanese flag might be good, but some Japanese people dislike this symbol, so how about a tiny icon with the word "Nihongo" in kanji or something? It should be possible to make a favicon-sized "nihongo" since the kanjis are very simple. --DannyWilde 01:26, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
@Personally, I'm not a big fan of the question mark, as I think it makes the whole thing look cluttered.: Perhaps. But we need a link to the help page; and an icon that can be easily identified as a help icon seems to be the best thing. If you want (perhaps because you don't need the help page), you can hide it (see the help page for details).
@how about a tiny icon with the word "Nihongo" in kanji or something?: That would be a very bad idea. Not only because even the last kanji becomes quite unreadable below 9x9 pixels, which is too large considering that it has to be part of a small icon that musn't be too wide, but still readable at all font-sizes, but mainly because that kind of icons don't look like help icons. Have you ever heard of mystery meat navigation?
Please also consider that the reader may not be familiar with Japanese or kanji at all. This means the text 日本語 might not mean anything to the reader. A flag might make the reader thing "Oh, it's Japanese", but also "Why is there a Japanese flag there?". The help icon however answers the following question: "Where can I find out what this is/means?" And it does so in a minimal amount of space. Shinobu 12:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
It's just my subjective opinion, but I added the template to some editing I did on the article Japanese toilet today, and I have to say the question mark looks absolutely horrible. I'm worried someone's going to revert all the edits just to get rid of the question marks. Would it be possible to just not have a link at all? I'm not really sure how necessary it is. --DannyWilde 00:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Recap and vote on question mark

Short recap of the process causing the ?:

  1. I suggested using a template. I used the ? because I saw something similar on a media link and I liked it.
  2. Exploding Boy suggested to use an image for clarity.
  3. I suggested using a help icon.
  4. Lord Ameth suggested putting the link on the kanji.
  5. Philip N. was afraid a link on the kanji would confuse new users.
  6. Lord Ameth agreed with Philip N.
  7. I did a mockup using a small leaflet with a blue question mark.
  8. Exploding Boy thought it was hard to see and suggested using another colour.
  9. I thought it was perhaps too light or too small.
  10. Exploding Boy thought the large version looked good.
  11. Philip N. noted underline problems.
  12. I added the large leaflet to the template on the basis that everyone seemded to be happy with it.
  13. Lord Ameth thinks the ? clutters the template.
  14. DannyWilde suggested using a flag or 日本語.
  15. I opposed that idea.
  16. DannyWilde suggested dropping the link altogether.

Opinions until now (feel free to add your vote or change your mind):

  • Exploding Boy: large leaflet
  • Lord Ameth: no link on kanji; ? → no ?
  • Philip N.: no link on kanji; ? (_ problems with large leaflet)
  • DannyWilde: flag, 日本語 or nothing or super-?
  • me: super-?
    However, if someone thinks up a way to link to a help page without having the leaflet/? in the body of the text, fine.

Shinobu 15:13, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I just came over to this page to suggest getting rid of the ? in some way. I'd be OK with dropping it, or changing the kanji to a link. The link leads to a page explaining Japanese orthography - if someone doesn't know how that works, and the "strange symbols" are a link, that seems like where they would click. If there must be a ? of some sort, I'd vote for the white ? in blue circle (standardized information icon) suggested below.

DenisMoskowitz 14:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I have to say I did sort of agree with DannyWilde when I looked at the edits to Japanese Toilet--it did seem somewhat intrusive. On the other hand, I think that may be just because we're not used to seeing the image in Japan-related articles. I think we'll get used to it (also, looking at Japanese Wikipedia articles, they have all sorts of images they use on various links). I do think the question mark is more intuitive than a flag or kanji (after all, the international symbol for information is a question mark). Perhaps for additional clarity it might be possible to use an actual "information" symbol (a white question mark inside a blue circle)? Exploding Boy 17:07, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Mockup ? in cirlce: lorem ipsum dolor sit est non iam consectetur nisi enim voluptat Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to ●?) lorem ipsum dolor sit est non iam consectetur nisi enim voluptat. Hm… not that bad but we would probably need an image because stuff like this always screws up at small font sizes. Shinobu 16:00, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Little icons like that are not standard in encyclopedias. However, superscript is well-recognized. I fixed it. Ashibaka (tock) 18:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

The superscript is an excellent solution. I wonder why I didn't think of that before... thanks! Shinobu 19:13, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree, the small question mark is definitely better. Thanks. --DannyWilde 00:01, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Just remember that whatever you guys decide here, it's probably going to take a lot of getting used to for the regular wikipedia readers, it's almost impossible to expect even a slight majority of acceptance for no matter what you do. Your average wiki guy doesn't want any help, no matter how useful it is to the average mojo.  freshgavin TALK   01:45, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
They wil either flood this page with complaints or turn the question mark off. Japanese-Guru's will probably do so, but to someone who only stumbles onto Japanese once in a whiel the link provides a quick clean recap of Japanese spelling etc. The superscript has made it a lot less "intrusive", so I think we're safe now. By the way, should Japanese name order be discussed on the help page? Shinobu 06:05, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
When those issues are worked out they will be clearly stated on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) so this page should link directly to there.  freshgavin TALK   05:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

No room for dates etc. in parens

Lifted from User_talk:LordAmeth:

I've looked through some of the converted articles, and it seems to work okay. However, in cases like Minamoto no Noriyori this happens:

Minamoto no Noriyori (源範頼?)(1156-1193)

Is ")(" intentional? Should we make a template that allows for inclusion of extra info, should we simply add a space, like so: Minamoto no Noriyori (源範頼?) (1156-1193), or is it okay as it is now?

Yours sincerely, Shinobu 15:43, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

It's up to you guys what you'd like to do. Adding a space is no problem, as I just need to leave a space after the template. Personally, I like it this way rather than including multiple types of information within one set of parentheses. Keeps things distinct. LordAmeth 02:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Floating box

I've just come across this on another page:

Image:Example.of.complex.text.rendering.svg This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support, you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Something like this could solve some of our problems re: text appearing incorrectly / naming order.

Exploding Boy 19:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

If we really want this, we could use a template that uses this one and puts the box there. I would suggest to use as little text as possible in the box, preferrably at a smaller font size. Is there a way to make a template include something only the first time it's called? Shinobu 10:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Just a subjective impression again, but at a first glance, I don't want this so much. It's clutter. --DannyWilde 13:48, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you're right. It doesn't answer any questions that the help-link doesn't answer. However, it could provide an alternative if we could include it only once and at a location where it doesn't interrupt the article flow. Has anyone got an idea on how to use the cat system for this or something? Shinobu 18:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I think I saw this on the Sanskrit article. Take a look at what it looks like there. It integrates very nicely with info boxes of the type we have on, for example, the Japanese imperial family, and could provide information for all types of issues with minimal text in the box itself (eg: redirecting to a page that covers all the potential issues) and eliminate, the more I think about it, the need for any type of in-text links (such as the question mark above) at all. Exploding Boy 19:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Hate to bring up the question marks again...

...but this introduces a real ambiguity for users who've opted to have redlinks replaced with trailing question marks (preferences → Misc → Format broken links). While the two types of question mark are visually distinguishable, having the one symbol mean two different things depending on its precise shape is still initially confusing and then distracting. — Haeleth Talk 22:56, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, but what do you suggest doing instead of question marks? My "nihongo" icon idea got shot down, and no one seems particularly keen on Exploding Boy's Sanskrit style box at the top of the page either. At the moment the question mark seems to be the "least-worst-possible-choice". --DannyWilde 02:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
There are a couple Unicode glyphs you can use. They rely on font and browser support though, and their semantic value might not be too high.
?   QUESTION MARK
⍰   APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL QUAD QUESTION
﹖   SMALL QUESTION MARK
？   FULLWIDTH QUESTION MARK
�   REPLACEMENT CHARACTER
ℹ   INFORMATION SOURCE
‸   REFERENCE MARK
For me, all of them display in FFox on Windows (probably with Unicode-rich fonts), while only 1,3,4 display in IExplore. —Philip N.✉ 00:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I hadn't thought of the redlinks... sorry. I doubt it's a real problem, since the redlink-?'s look really different (at least to me) but still. Feel free to (change your) vote in the poll above.
I find none of the ?'s above sufficiently different from the one we have now to take the risk of it turning into a box on pc's without font support.
A possible alternative: small(!) infobox on first occurrence and no infoboxes/?'s later on. This would require two templates, this one and a possible nihongo1 for the first occurrence. Another possible application of this technique: only a ? on the first occurrence. Downside: two templates instead of one (less elegant in my opinion, but wiki hasn't got an <includeonlyonce>-tag, so it may be our only option).
By the way, does anyone know enough about wiki template syntax to know if specifying an empty default value for param 3 would make the final pipe unnecessary when not using param 3? Shinobu 07:07, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Listen very carefully, I shall include this only once. I wish I could. Shinobu 07:18, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Possible infobox scenario

Possible template scenario for an infobox on first occurrence:

  • {{nihongo|english|japanese|romaji}} does what it does now, possibly whithout ?.
  • {{nihongo1|english|japanese|romaji|extra}} calls nihongo and displays an infobox, appending extra (defaults to empty) at the end of the infobox.
  • {{nihongon|english|japanese|romaji}} could call nihongo1 with extra containing a short notice on japanese names.

Just some suggestions, nothing more. Shinobu 07:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Reverse Senarios

There's a lot of instances where people might use this template to show translations for Japanese using the English version as main: Junichiro Koizumi (小泉純一郎 Koizumi Junichirō?) but wouldn't it be just as beneficial to have it work in reverse as well? For example, place names:
... located on Iojima (硫黄島, Iōjima, lit. Suplhur Island) ...
... located on Io Island (硫黄島, Iōjima, Sulphur Island) ...
or other possible scenarios where it's necessary to include the English name, Kanji, Rōmaji, and translation. For example:
... part of Hoori's name, ori (折り, lit. to bend) indicates a crop ...
doesn't need the difference specified between English and Rōmaji but it probably should, except that it would look extremely long and goofy as:
... ori (折り, ori, lit. to bend) ...
Of course there are better examples (though rare) where it would be more useful.

So anyways, has anyone thought of this? I come up with this problem situation much more frequently than Junichiro Koizumi (小泉純一郎 Koizumi Junichirō?), because English to Japanese is a rather simple and well established format.  freshgavin TALK   05:45, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

No, but now it will keep us awake at night :-) Would you think it better to generalize this template (if possible), use an entirely new template or a new template that somehow calls this one? Also, what kind of scenario's are you expecting? What do you prefer? (With or without the lit. for instance.) Shinobu 10:49, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Basically every scenario is present ... Kanji (Romaji, lit English); Hepburn (Kanji, Romaji, lit English); English (Kanji, Hepburn, lit English) and probably more too. The Kanji (Romaji, lit English) SHOULD be done without, but I don't think we can stop people from using it because it's easy to use in more formal or legal-ish pages on Japanese subjects. I think a new template with the same style is the easiest, but then again I don't know much about templates, so there might be an easier way to do it than

{{nihongo1|Junichiro Koizumi|小泉純一郎|''Koizumi Junichirō''}} and {{nihongo2|''ori''|折り|ori|to bend}}.

Personally I prefer the lit. Those who don't use it could easily include it in the sentence structure instead, e.g. ... Iojima (硫黄島, Iōjima), which literally means sulpher island ... so it would be beneficial to have that last field as optional. No real preference on the order, although Hepburn(Kanji|Romaji|Lit) seems to make best sense to me.  freshgavin TALK   01:31, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I'll walk through the examples case-by-case and suggest a syntax. If we're happy with that, then we'll implement it.
... located on Iojima (硫黄島, Iōjima, lit. Sulphur Island) ...
... located on {{nihongo/lit|Iojima|硫黄島|Iōjima|Sulphur Island}} ...
Actually the first three arguments are the same as for nihongo, and the layout is the same too, so perhaps I might be able to just add a last optional field to the existing template. It would be easier to use, and perhaps even easier to implement.
... located on Io Island (硫黄島, Iōjima, Sulphur Island) ...
Same as above. The first argument denotes the English term, this could be either Iojima, or Io Island, I think.
... part of Hoori's name, ori (折り, lit. to bend) indicates a crop ...
... part of Hoori's name, {{nihongo|''ori''|折り||to bend}} indicates a crop ...
Assuming we'd be able to extend this template, otherwise we'd use nihongo/lit.

I personally prefer it with "lit." too; the main problem of kanji in normal text is that a non-Japanese reader will not be able to fluently read the text. A lot of people associate the words they read with the corresponding words they might hear; a sudden kanji doesn't allow this and thus makes it more difficult to parse the sentence. This is somewhat akin to the "dates in a French history book" fenomenon, except it's worse because with the dates in the French history book one can at least associate the English sounds whereas most people won't be able to associate any sounds with a kanji. Shinobu 08:05, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I seem to have found a way to make parameters truly optional (see one of the posts below for more on this); therefore I think it's best to edit this template instead of creating lots of new ones. However, there is a question to which I would like some feedback: given the fact that there are possibly more additions that people might want to add, to we want to make it the official 4th parameter, or do we want to name it instead?

4th

{{nihongo|E|K|R|L}} → E (K R lit. L)

{{nihongo|E|K||L}} → E (K lit. L)

{{nihongo|E|K|4=L}} → E (K lit. L)

named as lit

{{nihongo|E|K|R|lit=L}} → E (K R lit. L)

{{nihongo|E|K|lit=L}} → E (K lit. L)

As you can see the main problem is that if more optional arguments get added, and they get added by number, then we would either have to leave blank spaces if we want to omit some of them (which becomes more likely as more are added) or we would need to identify the following arguments by numbers (which I think are more difficult to remember than names). Please take a cursory review of Help:Template and provide some feedback here. Shinobu 14:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the best way to think about this is to remember that people in general won't think to use the template in the first place (or won't want to) and in all likelihood 90% of the use of the template will be in the same form. The most useful form of the template should have the basic 3 fields and no whistles to scare people away from using it. If someone is motivated enough and needs to use the template for rarer/more difficult cases, then they will probably be informed enough to use a slightly more complex version of the template (and thus you could change the name to reflect that it is more flexible). For a more useful template I think the best option would be to use blank fields to handle all 4 variables, but then again I have a programming background and it might just seem easier to me than the average user. Since 'lit.' probably won't be used that often, and some knowledge of the template will be required before use (regardless of the method in which 'lit.' is implemented) I think using the 'lit' label would be OK, but you may be overcomplicating things. If you were going to go that far you might as well make it into an HTML style tag that would work like {{nihongo name=Koizumi kanji=小泉 romaji=koizumi meaning="little spring"}}. freshgavin TALK   03:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The extra parameter would be completely optional, so don't worry about the template4 getting more complicated. Besides we wouldn't want to break existing instances, would we? Since the first three arguments would be used the most (perhaps almost always) it makes sense to keep them by number. I think labeling all arguments would make template more cumbersome to use in the avergae case. I'll add the lit-argument to the sandbox-version of this template to test it. Shinobu 08:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I've created a first test in our sandbox here. It seems to work, although I'm not sure about "Moon (月 tsuki lit. moon)" - would we perhaps want a comma in this case? Shinobu 09:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The 'lit. moon' there was optional right? Just making sure : ). About the comma issue, I was just looking back at the MOS discussion and there was no vote so I'm going to list the objections and make a proposal. I think Moon (月 tsuki lit. moon) really doesnt work without a comma (before lit.) and although I agree with Jpatokal about the listing of readings (which will be more useful in time) I don't think that argument enough is grounds to abandon commas, and it seems like there are a lot of people on both sides. I think you have an argument to enable/disable commas so lets leave it at that for now and see what the reaction is.  freshgavin TALK   05:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is. (see Template talk:Nihongo/Sandbox) And I agree on the comma. I think there is a solution to make a comma appear before lit. only if the romaji is present. Probably something like {{nihongo/lit|=,|{{{3}}}=|{{{lit}}}}}. Except that that won't work for those who have romaji always on, but who cares. It also would probably need modification if we added more attribs but for now it'll do the trick. I'll post a new comment when I implement this. Shinobu 22:57, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Leave that for a minute. I'd think having a comma in only that one situation would be quite strange (especially due to the nature of the argument why not to use a comma) so you should probably wait and see how the vote goes at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(Japan-related_articles).   freshgavin TALK    23:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I'll wait. Shinobu 09:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Alright, I didn't know that it was on a per-user basis, so it doesn't matter so much what the result of the vote is (looks like no comma). I don't think there's any problems with the fields now are there? And you seem to have all the necessary bases covered. Do you think anything else should be added to the help page? (or changed)   freshgavin TALK    00:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Question mark after the kanji

Since it's help about the kanji, shouldn't the question mark go after the kanji, rather than after the optional romaji? --DannyWilde 08:39, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually the second section (Japanese pronunciation) is about the romaji as well. Shinobu 14:43, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


What is the purpose of this template?

I've seen this template used in a number of articles and am still at a loss for what it is intended to do. If it is intended to standardize the way we write Japanese words in articles, isn't the use of this template a standard (and a reasonably obscure and unintuitive one at that) itself? Haven't we just moved the discussion one level higher, but not really solved anything? Given the above-mentioned lack of freedom this template enforces on article writers and associated clutter, why not simply edit article text itself as mistakes are made rather than edit each article to include this tag?

Furthermore, how much is the community served by having a direct link to this help page from every Japanese word on the site? Is it really the case that people can't look at the word Yoshitsune, knowing it is Japanese, and not get a reasonable enough idea on its pronunciation without a help page (furthermore, help is already available at Japanese)? Won't anyone who wants to know the exact Japanese pronunciation of romanized words have the wherewithal to learn the rules?

I just don't see the wisdom of, in the interest of those very few, enforcing this standard on every Japanese word on the site. - Exitmoose 05:41, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

It's a little difficult for me to understand your objection. I've read the above text twice but I still don't really understand what you mean. I'm fairly happy with the current template. --DannyWilde 06:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Um, well, I'm not quite sure how to make it more explicit. To be clear, I'm arguing against the use of this template. First, let's note that the template does not translate or provide correct romanizations. The author has to enter these into the template, just like he would have to if he were using parentheses. What it does do, then, is:
A. Enforce a standard order of "kanji, kana, romanization"
B. Provide a link to the "Nihongo help" template page
Part of the reason this template exists to standardize the way Japanese words are displayed, but saying "use this template as described" itself is a standard, every bit as complicated as simply saying "put kanji first, then kana, then translation". Sure, we could go through every article in Wikipedia that has Japanese text, and replace it with this template, but why not simply change the text to fit the rule? What does the template give us that a simple convention does not?
It's obvious what it takes away. Above posts mention the lack of flexibility. Sure, we can patch the template over and over to deal with all the possible situations, but why not simply not use a template at all, and let standards establish themselves as need be? Furthermore, this template adds one more layer of complication for any new Wikipedia editor who wants to use Japanese words. Now, instead of learning a simple and relatively intuitive convention for displaying Japanese, the editor needs to learn the syntax (and quirks - for instance the use of ' marks) for this template. If the writer thinks that it would be more appropriate to, say, swap the order of the kanji and the romanization, he must make an appeal here to change the template. In short, the template introduces unnecessary centralization.
Finally regarding the "?" links, while a help page for pronouncing Japanese words is certainly useful, does it rise to such a level as to demand we go back through past articles to change every instance of a Japanese word to fit this template? Should every single Japanese word in Wikipedia need a link to this help page? If we desire a place for people to go to understand the pronunciation of Japanese, there already is one (Japanese). We need not make a link to it from every Japanese word, because its location is obvious, and we can trust that anyone that really wants to know how to pronounce romanized words can simply look there. So what does the "Nihongo Help" template provide, besides the already mentioned clutter and duplication of a perfectly good summary of the Japanese language?
In short, I think this template introduces unnecessary complication for benefits that are marginal at best. I think the aims of the template can be better served by simply editing romanization and order mistakes as they come. - Exitmoose 07:53, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
B. One cannot assume that someone knows what Japanese is, or even that their user agent is capable of displaying Japanese. Well, I suppose you could assume that for some articles that you aren't likely to read unless you know what you are doing.
A. As for a standard way, there is already one. This template just implements the standard. In my opinion, the only useful thing in this template is the help link, I wouldn't use the template more than once per article (or more if there are several entry points). —Philip N.✉ 12:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
The template does more than this (and could do even more in the future).
  • It flags the Japanese word as lang=ja.
  • It specifies CSS classes for the various elements.
    This allows, at least in theory, among other things, for the following:
    • Alternate style for printing (through your user css I presume).
    • Replacing Hepburn with hiragana if you're into that (possibly through your user script)
    • Suppressing all question marks except the first (script again, I assume)
    • Hiding the kanji if your browser doesn't support it, you hate hollow squares and you're not going to learn kanji anytime soon in any case.
  • It helps editors who tend to forget little details, but who are able to remember the template syntax. Have you ever wondered whether a musical album should be formatted like Derailing Ukuleles or "Derailing Ukuleles" or perhaps Derailing Ukuleles? I have.
  • It is a safeguard for if the standard changes. When this template just incarnated there was still a bit of talk about the comma. When we decided we didn't want it, it was very easy to remove.
  • And of course there is the old principle that <h1>Heading</h1> contains more useful information than <p style="font:bold 30pt">Heading</p>.

Perhaps more good arguments can be thought up, but I think these should be enough for now. Of course, no one can force anyone to use it. I don't claim that it's perfect either. Changing something here is a lot easier than changing something in a myriad of articles. And even if we do have to change something in those articles for some reason, it's still easier since a bot could potentially figure out what articles are using this template. I'm not into bot-programming myself, but it sounds easier than trying to figure out some heuristic to determine whether a given piece of text contains an English-Japanese-Pronunciation-triple. Shinobu 06:25, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

The template is definitely a good idea for all of the above reasons and more. Even just as a tag for Japanese words, it is still useful as a means of organizing information. --DannyWilde 08:02, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Me like template. Gerard Foley 02:11, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Problem with doubled romaji

On Japanese plane, in the reference section, I had a problem with the template doubling the romaji. It insisted on producing the name of the book in romaji twice unless I put a (kanji) space there. This seems to be a bug in the template. --DannyWilde 15:13, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Ouch! I'll fix it ASAP. Shinobu 17:36, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
I think the '' cause the problem... The italics markers outside the template interfere with those inside the template. In effect two markers intended as start-italics are combined to form start- and end-italics. This causes a span with display:none to be cut off (before the end-italics). So that causes the problem. Since it's caused by the ambiguity of the start-italics and end-italics in wikitext, using html i-tags in the template should solve this problem. Tests seem to indicate it works. So I'll implement this then. Shinobu 18:21, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for fixing the problem. --DannyWilde 02:12, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
You're welcome. Shinobu 07:33, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Defaulted 3d param to empty

I've defaulted the 3d parameter to empty on Template:Nihongo/Sandbox. Unless anyone has any objections (due to it not working in certain circumstances for example) the changes made there will be moved here. Perhaps it is also possible to add pages omitting the first and second parameter to some category. Since obviously omitting either of them is probably a mistake/typo, adding those instances to a category would facilitate finding these. Shinobu 13:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

After reading through more documentation I think the usefulness of these categories will be zip, because there doesn't seem to be a way to accidentally omit these arguments, given the way I constructed the template. Shinobu 15:03, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Script to show only the first help-link

I've cooked up a bit of script to do this. First you hide all help-links (as described on Help:Japanese). Then you make the first one visible again. Since it's a first version it should still be considered experimental, but it seems to work for me.

// [[User:Gerbrant/NihongoReviveFirstHelpLink.js]]
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Gerbrant/NihongoReviveFirstHelpLink.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

If you try this and it works, or if it breaks something, please leave me a note. Shinobu 14:25, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Against this template

The placing of non-Roman characters, and especially Chinese and Japanese (kanji in particular), into bold; the consensus has been that this makes for difficult viewing for many people, and that it shouldn't be done. The introduction of this template reverses that decision, apparently without discussion. I can't see that it offers any other advantages over merely giving the words/names in Romanised form and in Japanese . I'm therefore inclined to put it up for deletion. Can anyone convince me otherwise before I take that step? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the connection with bolding east-Asian characters; the template doesn't use bold face. The template is merely a tool to standardize the quick translation of Japanese/English words into English/Japanese.   freshgavin TALK    00:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The template doesn't itself use bold, but its use means that the Japanese characters are bolded (I've just removed a few for precisely that reason). Unless I (and the people who are using the template) am missing something, it's impossible to use it for the subject of an article in the summary without either the Romanised form being un-bolded or the Japanese form being bolded. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The romanizated form is supposed to be italicized, not bolded. And I cannot see how the Japanese is bolded unless you are putting the template arguments in the wrong order. —Philip N.✉ 11:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
See here. The language information alone (which could alternatively be inlcuded via Template:lang) is enough reason to keep it, since it ensures that Chinese characters display in their Japanese form.—Wikipeditor 02:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd have thought that anyone who knew enough to use this template could achieve the same effect (as you point out) without the side-effect of bolding the characters. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

As Philip N. said, the template does *not* make any text bold by default. However, editors may manually apply text formatting – see the beginning of Tsushima Strait (and its markup) for an example where I've manually added strong emphasis to ‘Tsushima Strait’, while the template automatically adds simple emphasis to ‘tsushima kaikyō’. If you see any boldened Asian characters or romanisation, I guess it's due to the user.css or skin you use.—Wikipeditor 13:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The first use of a subject in the summary is bolded, by Wikipedia policy; when the template is used, the whole template goes inside the bolding — hence the problem. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

No. I told you to have a look at the example of the template in use. As you can see, not “the whole template goes inside the bolding”. As User:Freshgavin has already told you, the template doesn't have anything to do with bolding. It is possible to put the whole template inside a bolding (e.g. '''{{nihongo|Tsushima Strait|対馬海峡|tsushima kaikyō}}'''), but it is also possible to apply bolding to individual parts within the template (as I have done with the English name in the example: {{nihongo|'''Tsushima Strait'''|対馬海峡|tsushima kaikyō}}), or not to use any bolding at all (e.g. {{nihongo|Tsushima Strait|対馬海峡|tsushima kaikyō}}). Easy, hey?—Wikipeditor 16:22, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
You need to make this clear to users of the template, not to me, because all the examples I've seen (aside from the one that you've chosen) have placed the whole template inside the bolding. As I've made clear in successive messages, I never thought that the template had anything to do with bolding; I was concerned with the use made of it, and its apparent lack of genuine usefulness. It seems to me to be another example of the rapidly accelerating geek-creep (such as {{seealso}} — the development of unnecessary Wikipedia templates that serve mainly to mark off the "real" Wikipedia editor from the dabbler.
Incidentally, try to avoid childishly offensive edit summaries; uncharitable people might infer things about you that you'd rather they didn't. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I'm just sometimes annoyed when people threaten to delete something (in this case, you have merely mentioned deletion) because/although they don't understand it.
I hope everything is clear now. Are you still inclined to put the template up for deletion? I think it's useful, but I agree its use could be shown to the newcomer in a better way. Maybe I'll do that someday. I also think it looks complicated, but i gather this is necessary, and people (not me) have invested much work in it. I trust that this template's creation and widespread use stems from past experience which has shown some need for it. I know one user in the German WP who'd be happy to have this template available there.—Wikipeditor 23:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't intended to be a threat, but an explanation of my position. I still feel that its complexity outweighs its usefulness, but so long as people use it correctly it isn't positively harmful. I wonder how many people will use it (correctly or not? Might it in fact become a project for a small number of aficianados? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

When you're fixing articles on Japanese subjects every day, you realize how worthwhile it is. People don't pay attention to style rules and thus are using all of their own methods for short translations and this keeps the style consistant. Whether it will be an overstrain on the servers is something that I can't really say.   freshgavin TALK    23:46, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
The servers can handle a lot more than some give them credit for.—Attributed to Brion, probably not verbatim.
Wikipeditor
Well I tend to agree with Mel Etitis on that point. The fact that the servers can handle it doesn't justify it, that's taking advantage of the system and constitutes m:Instruction creep, which costs Wikifoundation a lot of money to keep up with (something they're doing a pretty good job of, obviously).   freshgavin TALK    03:11, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable. I prefer to remain ignorant of the technical side of this project. Wikipeditor 13:36, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Help:Japanese

Is this a good self reference that should be in all articles? Or multiple places in one article? I don't know... I think the help link may have some validity at the beginning of the articles... but, I also am wary about not having "Japanese:" which helps users who don't know the script tell which language it is right away. It's also really simple to code without a template. I suppose not if you want the help link... gren グレン ? 05:30, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I basically feel that this replaces the "Japanese:/Ja:" tags, though I sometimes use them anyways at the beginning of an article.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  00:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Universal Usage

I really like this template and I've been adding it to many different articles. However, I just realized that I never checked to see if that was a good idea. How many times should this template be used per article? Just once, towards the top? Or can/should every usage of Japanese feature this template? --Do Not Talk About Feitclub (contributions) 09:32, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Generally it's a convention of style to keep defined Japanese terms to a minimum in an article. In theory, articles about Japanese terms are best served only defining the term itself, with the rest of the Japanese terms in the article expressed in English with links to their appropriate pages explaining them in Japanese. In practice this is a pain in the ass as many very Japanese-y articles flow much better when a handful of terms are introduced and used promanently in the text. If you have too many Japanese terms in your article, you're putting too much stress on the reader (to remember what all of the terms mean after being told once) and I think the maximum number of terms that the reader should be expected to remember for a mid-sized article is about 3-5. That being said there's really no problem with you using the template the same number of times.
In some articles, where the Japanese word count gets pretty high (glossaries for example) the template doesn't really serve much purpose past the first instance, and it also causes considerable stress on the server (to keep loading the template over and over) so you shouldn't use it in those situations.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  00:33, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Using {{qif}} instead of {{call}}

I've changed to template in the Sandbox to use {{qif}} instead of {{call}} and the other meta-templates. It should help slightly with server load and makes things easier to manage as you are only dealing with one template instead of four.

On other thing I would change would be to change lit to extra. That way it can handle translations into English or birth–death dates for people. The latter of would make it conform better with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). Comments? --TheFarix (Talk) 12:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I was planning on examining a possible change to qif, to see if it would help, but I never got around to do it. Thanks. Having one template should also make editing and managing it in the future easier. Have you checked whether the changed template contains all the right css-classes and is well behaved when parameters are missing? Shinobu 21:36, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I've checked Template talk:Nihongo/Sandbox, and made a minor tweak. It looks okay, is more managable, so if this really decreases server load as well, then you're good to go. *switches on the green light* Shinobu 22:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
It should as it's only making two calls to a meta-template instead of four using the other method. I am going to change the "lit" parameter to "extra". It would be more flexible that way when you want to put additional information inside the (). So instead of having something like {{Nihongo|Moon|月|tsuki|lit=moon}}, you will have {{Nihongo|Moon|月|tsuki|extra=lit. moon}} --TheFarix (Talk) 22:27, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I think there's something subtle wrong with the comma... because of earlier decisions, it should normally only be visible when both Hepburn and extra are present, otherwise it should be hidden by default. Or perhaps not. The discussion on why the comma should(n't) be there is in the MoS-JrA talk, I think. Just tell me that this comma is nothing to worry about, so that I can be at peace. Shinobu 09:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I had the comma hidden like it is with the 3rd parameter, but someone took that part out and had the comma show regardless. I'm also hesitant to add another {{qif}} call to this template. Maybe later when native support of conditionals is introduced into MediaWiki. --TheFarix (Talk) 16:26, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

More complaints about this template

I agree with various users above that this template seems to serve no useful purpose, and the current image makes every Japanese word look like a question. Exploding Boy 02:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

alterations

I have modified the template slighly removing what appears to be redundent code. I have not removed any functionality in the process.

I have left the wierd "?" in as I do not want to alter functionality. I have also added a lik that links to the article explaining japanese language. People ought to know what language they are dealing with.

This template is excelent. I wish I knew about it sooner. It should be placed in more articles. I also recomend the template to be protected or semiprotected to avoid abuse.

--Cat out 22:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you revert? You've managed to feck up hundred's of articles in one fail swoop by adding "Japanese" to the front. Highway Rainbow Sneakers 23:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I have reverted because all the article its used mention "In Japanese" and adding extra words fecks the context. Sorry, Highway Rainbow Sneakers 23:13, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe my version is better on the long run. Templates are supposed to take care of repetive usage. --Cat out 23:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Well all it does is feck up context. Highway Rainbow Sneakers 11:01, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Can you cite examples? I cant seem to find any. --Cat out 15:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Cool cat, this template has been through months of discussion already and if you want to suggest changes you should bring it up here first. I'm not disagreeing or agreeing with any of your changes, just it seems like common sense to me to discuss these things first, seeing as how a dozen people were involved in making it in the first place.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  00:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Generaly being bold is favored on wikipedia. But very well, lets discuss. I propose th exact alterations I made that were reverted. --Cat out 16:58, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Bold yes, going against consensus and choosing not to view all sides of the story, not so much. I stand for the current version, with the "Japanese:" tag. I believe that this prefix hinders articles ability, breaking up natural English and having to bend the sentence around an required term, causing problems. A prime example of this is in Pokémon articles, because of the Japanese names in the intro. For example, mostt article read as - Pikachu (known as "£$%^% Pikachū in Japanese) is a.... is deformed into - Pikachu (known as "£$%^% Japanese:Pikachū in Japanese). Personally, I think Pikachu (Japanese:Pikachū) is a.. doesn't read as well as our current version, leading to the original argument. I'm attempting to compromise, with a halfway point, perhaps we could have one template with the current version, and another with the "Japanese:" prefix. Personally, I've set to see an article that would improve from this prefix, but I don't want to cross out the hope that it could be of use. The main reason I'm against "subst:"ing the template is that it's about ten lines long, which is not that perfect in an introduction. Hope this helps, Highway Rainbow Sneakers 17:11, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I don't have any problems with the template as it is now. I don't have anything against being bold either, but in certain cases—like widely used templates, featured articles, and the Main Page layout—the changes are too visible, and as it's possible to cause a lot of trouble with a simple edit, it's probably not best to be so bold in those cases.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  00:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

User:JarlaxleArtemis has added it back so I took the liberty of removing the little question mark this time. If you revert him I don't mind reverting me as well. Ashibaka tock 03:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The template is broken now. At PlayStation 3, it is appearing as (Japanese: プレイステーション3, pureisutēshon 3]]) -- ReyBrujo 03:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Fixed that. Please keep a single style if possible. I really didn't mind the '?', it was like a trademark. Now it will be harder to see when an article has the template and when it was added by hand without editing the article. -- ReyBrujo 03:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I am really hating this "Japanese:". 99% the template is used in context and there is no confusion that the text is Japanese. It also starts to look really bad (悪い?) if used often (よく?) in close quarters as you have the word "Japanese" (日本語?) becoming a major redundancy (衍文?) and it blocks the flow of reading. Let's please get rid of it, I'm very much so used to the old version. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SeizureDog (talk • contribs) .
I do agree with SeizureDog. Articles with several japanese words in the same paragraph are looking terrible. -- ReyBrujo 05:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Agreed with SeizureDog and ReyBrujo.--Monocrat 05:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted User:JarlaxleArtemis's edits (this is the second time in a month) on the grounds that he has not given any attempt to discuss what are clearly controversial changes to the template, and I won't hesitate to report him as a vandal if he tries to revert the changes a third time. Don't be afraid to be bold, everyone is complaining here that they hate the Japanese: tag when it was decided months ago that nobody wanted it, so feel free to revert whenever someone tries to force changes on a Template like that.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  07:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Removing some of the spans

I'm just wondering how useful almost all of those span are in the template. I think all but one can be safely removed. I would still include <span lang="ja"> around the Kanji even though I have questions about its usefulness or if it is just cruft from before Wikipedia started using the utf-8 characterset. --TheFarix (Talk) 20:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The spans define CSS classes that can be overridden by the user. For example to remove the help link, or (using script) to show only the first, or to format the various parts as desired. Although some clutter could perhaps be removed if the style=xyzzy attributes were to be moved to the stylesheet, but I imagine that will not happen unless we create common classes that also apply to other languages than Japanese. It just wouldn't be justified to change the global stylesheet just for this template. Shinobu 23:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
But none of the CSS classes are documented, and very readers or editors even know that they exist. Because of that, the CSS classes are nearly useless clutter. --TheFarix (Talk) 00:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually they are documented (follow the help link on the template, "See also" section). A few examples are provided, and an example script should be on a talk page somewhere, but I've forgotten where. Shinobu 16:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
That documentation is buried rather deeply, perhaps too deeply for anyone to notice. So I still doubt that editors and readers have overridden the CSS classes to any significant extent. --TheFarix (Talk) 17:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Rather deeply? No, not really. Anyway, from previous discussions, I am almost certain that some people have removed the help link. Removing that span will break that. Also if someone wants to print an article there must be some way to remove such a link, as it will only be useful in the on-screen version. Also, there was a very old discussion about whether romaji should be given if it were the same as the equivalent English term. That was around the time this template started (and one of the reasons the norom-span is there) - people in the "yes-it-should" camp can specify this. By the way, why do you want the spans removed so badly? As far as I can tell they're not really hurting anyone, the classes probably can't be more than 30% of the text. Deleting them will kill functionality without offering a marked benefit. As for your first question: no these spans are not cruft from before the UTF-8 introduction, they are there to provide styling and scripting functionality. Perhaps, in an ideal world, you would be able to override certain templates from the skins, and templates would look more compact. (And it would allow me to override the dab template - I like the ones at the other Wikipedias much better...) But this is not the case. Shinobu 00:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

extra2 parameter

Is the extra2 parameter meant to put stuff outside the closing brace? If so, is there a semantic difference between "...|extra2=lorem}}" and "...}} lorem"? I appreciate the chance that I might be missing something. Shinobu 23:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, extra2 comes after the parentheses. The only time you will notice a difference is when the template is preceded by a ';' as part of a definition list. In such cases extra2 will be within the "font-weight: normal" span and not be in bold, whereas it would be bold if the text came after the template. --TheFarix (Talk) 00:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Okay... have you documented it yet? Shinobu 15:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Not yet. --TheFarix (Talk) 17:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Italic kanji

I just notice that the kanji are in italics when the whole thing is in a passage of italic text. This has probably always been the case, but I apparently didn't notice, or didn't care. Do we really want this? The reason I'm asking this is that kanji don't have a native cursive (or at least not as we know it) and adding an artificial slant like it does my not be 100% correct behaviour. Shinobu 11:49, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed this behaviour in the 'More examples' section a the top of the page. I would agree that this doesn't seem correct. There doesn't seem to be any reason that this would be desirable, and could be easily done on accident. It would only reduce readability of the kanji.
Keeping in mind that I'm a template newbie, it seems this span attribute could be used on the kanji field? <span style="font-style:normal;"> I dunno if this should be used on english, extra, or extra2. I'd say a definite 'yes' on the first two, since it could be overridden with ''italics'' tagging. However, the last one is outside of the parenthesis, so perhaps it should have behavior in line with surrounding text? --Tsuji 20:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
The last parameter is deliberately kept within the span. (Otherwise you would type the text outside of the template in any case.) It is useful in cases like this (silly example follows):
Tsuki (月?) Blood type A
A very lifely planet, Tsuki is always twirling around Chikyuu, in a permanent state of bubbling energetic happiness.
I have been toying around in the sandbox, have a look at the last message below. Shinobu 00:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Another comment on the ? mark

Well, since this argument is months old and seems to have been decided, this is probably a moot issue, but I though I'd put up another alternative. Three forms I considered—

existing: English (邦字 Romaji?)

text form 'Help': English (邦字 RomajiHelp)

text form 'Help?': English (邦字 RomajiHelp?)

Lastly, would it possible to add code to the template to have the help link customizable by the article writer? For instance, to switch between two forms, or supress it in an article with a large number of Japanese words, e.g.:

{{nihongo|English|Kanji|Romaji|extra|extra2|'''qmark'''}} versus

{{nihongo|English|Kanji|Romaji|extra|extra2|'''help'''}} versus

{{nihongo|English|Kanji|Romaji|extra|extra2|'''none'''}} ?

I suppose this would force someone to use all the pipes to customize the behavior, but it would allow a modicum of control. In practice it could be used as such: {{nihongo|English|Kanji||||none}} to supress the Help:Japanese link altogether.

I'm not skilled enough—with CSS, Templates, Parsing, whatever it may be—to know if this could be done. --Tsuji 19:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've tinkered about, and it seems possible. This addition would provide a method of allowing an author to alter the basic template behavior. This can be done without breaking anything that I can see, so it should be pretty much backwards compatible. Give me a while longer to tinker and I'll show you what I've come up with. And please, if anyone has any comments on this, do share. The version I've made also addresses the italization issue at Template_talk:Nihongo#Italic kanji. Well, I suppose this means it's not backward compatible, really. But it's a minor change— I think a good one. --Tsuji 06:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
If anyone wants to see this edited version, check out Template:Nihongo-Dev or see examples at Template talk:Nihongo-Dev. Check 'em out. --Tsuji 06:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I've looked at them. The ability to remove the question mark is useful. Allowing the help-link to appear different on different articles leads to inconsistency, a problem this template is supposed to solve, and I also dislike the need for quotes. An idea: Have a parameter that makes the template default to ?, but when supplied as an empty parameter remove the ?. This can be done with default values, I think. Also, does anyone know if there is a Wikipedia class for stuff that should not be printed? If everything works fine, I'll compare the two templates, test some more, and when everything works fine I'll merge the results back here. Shinobu 01:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
P.S. The ? was chosen because it's about as non-intrusive you can get. Shinobu 01:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yet one more option: move the question-mark outside of the parentheses, thus: English (邦字 Romaji)? — just a thought. Xtifr tälk 00:50, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I could in any case get behind this, but I personally would like to see the ? hidden by default. Pecking out the option once or twice in a long article seems preferable to pecking it out numerous times. Just my two cents.--Monocrat 16:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Why not "info" rather than "help"? As the template stands right now, the question mark is so small on my screen it just looks like a tiny blue stain. Exploding Boy 18:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Embed script information

A user-configured browser can display Japanese kanji and kana in a font specifically made for Japanese by means of language information embedded in the text. Future versions of web browsers will hopefully base the decision which font to display text in on the script the text is written in rather than the text's language. To support this, I suggest we embed the necessary information using ISO 15924 codes like so:

  • Change lang="ja" to either lang="ja-Japn" or lang="jpn-Japn". *
  • At a later stage, change <span class="t_nihongo_romaji"> to <span class="t_nihongo_romaji" lang="jpn-Latn">.
    This second change may not be a good thing to do yet: As long as browsers decide by language rather than script, they will display the romanisation in a Japanese font – which may not quite be the best solution (although I've seen it done in a pinyin template).

See also Understanding the New Language Tags (World Wide Web Consortium). Wikipeditor 2006-09-12

What would have your vote? Ja or jpn? You can test in this template's sandbox if it works, if you wish. Shinobu 00:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

* I retract that suggestion. According to the language subtag registry, all ja (= Japanese language) is to be understood as ja-Jpan (= Japanese language in Japanese script [Kanji and Kana]; the correct code is ›Jpan‹, not ›Japn‹ as I wrote last year) unless otherwise noted, so there should be no need for us to insert Jpan in this template. Wikipeditor 2007-06-16

Update Chinese interwiki

Please change the Chinese interwiki from zh:Template:Japanese to zh:Template:Nihongo. This new one is the inline template, while the old one is a box outside the text. -- Tomchiukc 05:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Done--Konst.ableTalk 00:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Category addition

Hi there. Could someone please add this template to Category:Multilingual support templates? Thanks. Mike Dillon 17:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Done --  Netsnipe  ►  17:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Could somebody please sort it as "{{PAGENAME}}"? Mike Dillon 16:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

That would be nice. It's now located at the T instead of the N. Shinobu 17:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Done--Konst.ableTalk 00:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! Shinobu 00:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposed changes

I propose two changes, for clarity I'll give you the sandbox link:

suggested wikitext

As you can see it does two things:

  • Wrap the question mark in a noprint tag. On paper such a link is useless, and it would not be professional to have it show up on paper.
  • Make sure the kanji is not italicised when the template is called from within a piece of italic text. This is to comply with MoS guidelines on this matter.

I'll wait a while for your reactions. If everyone is okay with this, I'll see if an admin comes by to help us. Shinobu 17:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

IE-related bug

There appears to be a bug when this template is used in the name field of {{Infobox musical artist}}. It only happens with Internet Explorer. See screenshot here. Discussion is here. Suggestions are welcome. Prolog 18:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Replied there. Shinobu 05:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for reply. – Heaven's Wrath   Talk  00:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

About Chinese Wikipedia link

In Chinese Wikipedia, we mostly use zh:Template:Japanese for japan related articles, some Wikipedian doesn't know the rule. The Nihongo Template is requesting for delete, so please change link , thanks.--Burning Flame 01:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. -- ReyBrujo 01:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

MOS-JP

Please incorporate my change of the sandbox into the template. Thank you.--GunnarRene 01:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You mean this change? -- ReyBrujo 01:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes. The template is sometimes over-used. --GunnarRene 08:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Edit made. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. --GunnarRene 01:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)